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dailypuzzle

Ginger GM

Chess.com

June 19, 2014 0:51

Carlsen Wins World Rapid Championship Ahead of Caruana & Anand

Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE World Rapid Championship in Dubai on Wednesday, finishing on 11.0/15. Fabiano Caruana had the best tiebreak of four players who finished on 10.5; Vishy Anand came third, Levon Aronian fourth and Alexander Morozevich fifth. On Thursday and Friday the FIDE World Blitz Championship will be played.

The third and final day of the rapid tournament started with an absolute cracker: Aronian vs Carlsen; number 1 and 2 of in the world classical chess and in the standings after 10 rounds. It was a great game that started as Ragozin and became a middlegame with White having an isolated queen's pawn. Carlsen's 18th move spiced up the game, and for another ten moves the game was played at a very high level.

Carlsen was the first to make a big mistake, and using much time on the clock he made another one. He played 31...g5 with 4 seconds on the clock - Aronian had more than two minutes there but soon he used three quarters of that. Around move 34 the Armenian GM was winning, but it wasn't easy and he made the practical choice of going for a line that provided at least a perpetual. As it turned out, there was not more than that either.

Aronian-Carlsen was a nice pairing, but what about Jobava-Morozevich? Two of the most creative players around facing each other, that could really only produce a nice game. And it did.

In an IQP position Jobava maneuvered his rook to g4, and two moves later he sacrificed it on g7. Like Mikhail Tal, the Georgian is capable of seeing tactics in the position that nobody else has seen yet! But Morozevich found the small path through the complications, and won the ending.

Nepomniachtchi had no chance against Anand, who completely outplayed his opponent in a 6.h3 Najdorf. It's not exactly clear where it went wrong for Black, but around move 20 he's completely busted positionally.

Round 12 saw the big game between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen - most probably the last but one (they will surely meet in the blitz tournament as well) before their return match for the world title. The Exchange Slav didn't surprise Anand at all, althoug the Indian said he needed some thought “to find the right move order”. He had a tiny edge out of the opening, which quickly became an endgame.

White managed to find some counterplay and at some point Anand gave two pieces for a rook, but he won White's a-pawn. It was probably still a draw because Black's own pawns were weak, but suddenly Carlsen blundered a piece and Anand could keep his a-pawn. White had a few pawns, but it just wasn't enough for a fortress. Another nice boost for Anand for the match, after winning the Candidates?

Caruana still must have been “having fun” as he moved back to shared first place with Anand. The Italian GM beat Tomashevsky in one of the most topical lines of the Closed Ruy Lopez these days (although the novelty was a deviation from a 1978 game!). White got a strong knight on f5, won a pawn and quickly won the ending.

Then, as the two leaders with three rounds to go, Anand and Caruana met on top board. The opening was a Classical French where both castled kingside and Black seemed to be equalizing quickly. Caruana even got a slight initiative on the kingside, but Anand held things together and as soon as an opposite-colored bishop ending appeared on the board, they asked one of the arbiters, and agreed to a draw.

Aronian and Radjabov drew their game, and so they dropped back half a point to go into shared fourth with Karjakin (who beat Tomashevsky), Grischuk (who beat Naiditsch) and Bacrot. The Frenchman beat beat Movsesian, who blundered a mate in one in a drawn position:

And so the situation with two rounds to go was Anand, Carlsen and Caruana leading with 9.5/13; Aronian, Radjabov, Karjakin, Grischuk & Bacrot on 9.

Caruana played Aronian on board one, and played 4.d3 against the Berlin. White seemed to be doing well with a good knight versus bad bishop, but Black won a pawn and kept it. The ending was perhaps draw, but Aronian found a lot of tricky moves and eventually his h-pawn was too strong.

Having bad memories about Astana two years ago, where things went wrong starting with Grischuk, Carlsen didn't get a good position out of the opening. He got into serious trouble and was just lost (e.g. 30...f5) but somehow survived and then even won.

And so Carlsen went into the last round with a half-point lead over Anand, Aronian and Karjakin. The first tiebreak was “ARCO” (Average Rating of Opponents Cut 1), and Carlsen and Peter Heine Nielsen (and the arbiter) had calculated that he only needed a draw in the last round against Radjabov. That last game did end in a draw, but the tiebreak wasn't relevant anymore when Anand and Aronian drew their game and Karjakin even lost:

In an excellent press conference after the tournament (which add to this article later), Carlsen said:

“It means a great deal. Of course the extremely strong playing field gave me extra motivation. It's clearly the strongest Swiss tournament ever held and I'm absolutely thrilled to have won it.”

Full press conference:

Carlsen had “no idea how [he] would be ready for the blitz tomorrow” and that he would follow his father's advice to take some exercise, and so later in the evening he joined in an indoor football match with a group of players!

Carlsen... playing as #1

Played decent chess in the 1st day, moderate in the 2nd and absolutely disgusting in the 3rd. Step by step...

The World Blitz starts on Thursday at 3pm local time (GMT +4) which is 1pm CET, 7am New York and 4am Los Angeles. The championship will be broadcast live on the tournament’s official website with online games and commentary.

Comments

It was certainly a good result for Anand and makes me think the WC match may be closer then I thought it would be. It is ludicrous though to call him moral winner . He has got a big streak of games without a loss though with the candidates and this.
It was interesting to see Nakamura was nowhere in this the strongest rapid tournament for years.
Blitz today great stuff.
Also I do not buy the line that these players do not take this seriously, they know the effect on their reputations of these games, and the money is still significant.

A great performance by Anand is no surprise. Anand will be a great Rapid and Blitze player for decades to come because of his super talent. He became the "Speed God" for the lightning speed he dispatched Grandmasters from early age. It's mainly on account of his enormous intuitive judgment that comes in to full play at the early stages a game. The early part is impossible to calculate. Humans rely on opening preparation, experience and intuition. There is compelling evidence to suggest that in intuitive judgment, Anand's judgment generally prevails over others at a higher rate. As he is equally great in other facets of the game, top players find it hard to beat him. This boils down to one simple fact. Holding well in the opening phase, then out calculating him in late-middle and the end game offers a best chance as the role of intuitive movements begin to give way to precise calculation. That's why Carlsen is so successful!Anand knows this. That's why he said that Carlsen is an incredibly difficult opponent to play against. He did not say something like this for any other opponent including Garry, the Great.
It goes the same way for Carlsen. Till some one literally out calculates him, it is difficult to over though him in a long duel.

It's true though. Carlsen in a worse position with a few seconds left threw down some of Naka's pieces and pressed the clock. He "corrected" in Nakas time obstructing him from playing. Naka protested~if Carlsen had played by the rules he would have lost. It's unfortunate that we have such an immoral world champion and such agressive comments.

Everybody was adjusting pieces and sometimes throwing and readjusting some of them. Of course none of the players claimed anything for that, because they understand what's going on - in sharp contrast to one or two posters here, who could just as well comment on the worldchampionship in Vodka drinking, looking at their comment level. :-))

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